


Notes Strewn Across the Bare Apartment Floor

by momebie (katilara)



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-06-16
Updated: 2012-06-21
Packaged: 2017-11-07 21:29:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 4,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/435647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katilara/pseuds/momebie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There comes a point where thinking back on your life is like looking through someone else's photo albums.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. #1 - Beginning.

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't really a story. It's a collection of snippets of the fanon I have about August living and working with Baelfire before the beginning of the series. I started writing them because of the 30 Day Writing Prompt Challenge on Tumblr. I might keep writing them after that's finished. I just have a lot of feelings about August, okay guys?

August’s favorite seat in the cafe is a tall stool set at a high counter that borders the floor to ceiling front windows. The seat faces the street, so he can work--or eavesdrop, which he also considers part of his work--without the other patrons paying him much attention at all. If he gets stuck, well, there is always an interesting character or two walking by to inspire him and push him forward. Some of the people who regularly walked past his window have been given intricate histories and a rich inner life that he divines from their dress and their gait and the careless way they brush their hair aside or step into the road without looking. Then there is The Man. 

The Man is lean, with shaggy dark hair that falls into his eyes because he always walks with his head down, his mouth set as if he's concentrating on the next step. He moves with deliberate purpose, like not moving would be permission to dissipate. His posture is slightly hunched, and if his hands aren’t thrust deep in his pockets they're clutching at the tails of his shirts and jackets. He looked as if he is holding on to himself for dear life.

There's something about him that sends August to pieces. On more than one occassion August has looked down after losing him a crowd or around a corner to find his hand shaking around its pen. It isn’t tremors of fear. It's more like a magnet recognizing the opposite pole in another. He can’t attach a past or a future to the man because the man always makes him think about what it would be like to have no past or future at all. It doesn’t make sense. None of it makes sense. 

. . . 

August is deep in the middle of a scene and doesn’t want to lose his momentum, so when someone jostles his elbow he merely grunts in response to their muttered “ _entschuldigung_ ” and continues to chase his thoughts across the page. He is making good time today. Another half an hour and he can probably have his hero defeat the dragon. Or not. He hasn’t decided yet. Sometimes it just isn’t in the cards for the dragon to be defeated. 

“Excuse me, are you from here?”

August raises his head. No one has spoken to him in English in months. The Man, the one person he hasn’t been able to assign a story to, is sitting next to him. August looks around and realizes that the morning rush has ended. They are the only two patrons in the cafe. “No,” he says. 

“I thought not. You have that air of moving on about you. I can respect that in a man.”

“And who are you that I would wish to be given your respect?”

“No one. Baelfire.” 

“That’s an unusual name. Is it common here?”

“I should think not,” Baelfire says. “I’m not from around here either.” He holds out his hand and August lays down his pen so he can shake it. 

When their skin touches an electric jolt snaps through him. For a moment he is back in his papa’s workshop. He can hear the clocks and smell the wood shavings and see the dusty sun filtering in through his favorite window. Baelfire lets go of August's hand and he lookz down to find it trembling. 

August wantz to say something witty or off putting. He wantz to push this stranger away and go back to his writing and the world he livez in where Baelfire is simply an enigma and not a miracle. Because that’s what their meeting is. In a stack of 6 billion pieces of hay, he’s accidentally found the needle. Nothing short of a miracle could have made that happen. 

Except for magic. 

“Do you have a name?” Baelfire asks. “Or should I give you one on my own?”

“I thought there were only two of us.”

“My, that is strange.” Baelfire quirks the side of his lip up and brushes his hair out of his eyes. 

“August,” August says. “I’m August.” 

“Good,” Baelfire says. “You and us and me makes three. Just the right number of people to change the world.”


	2. #2 - Accusation

“I’m not going to be your errand boy,” August says. “There are things I need to do on my own. I can’t be at your beckoned call whenever you might need some information you can’t get over the phone.” 

“That’s funny,” Baelfire says. “I thought you liked running. I just figured I was doing you a favor.”

“I’m not running. I’m a writer. I get sent on assignment.”

“To exotic locations like Munich?” Baelfire raises an eyebrow and August knows that he’s already lost. He can feel the resistance slipping as his curiosity takes over. 

“I’m new, have to work my way up to the big stuff.”

“What I’m giving you is big,”

“Yeah, but you’re not paying me like it’s big. I’m a real boy here, I have to eat.”

Baelfire leans back in his chair and looks over August, appraising his find. “What would you like me to pay you?”

“Just like that?” August can’t believe that was all it took. He's young, and maybe even a bit naive about the workings of this world still, but he isn’t stupid. He knows that Baelfire is from the old land—wouldn’t get such a strong pull in his gut every time their hands brushed if he wasn’t—but he has no way of proving that Baelfire ss who he says he iss. It would be a show of good faith on the parts of both of them to make this agreement work. 

“Just like that,” Baelfire says. “You know as well as I do how little we actually have. We need to stick together.” 

“Take care of each other,” August says, the word care ringing hollow inside of him. Maybe with Baelfire’s help he would be able to find Emma and get her back and watch over her in the way he was supposed to. It's been eighteen years since they crossed over. She will no longer legally need a minder, but even if she does need help with school or board Baelfire, at thirty-two, is in more of a position to give her that than August, who is barely twenty-five physically and still learning.

“One thing at a time,” Baelfire says. “Have you ever been to Russia?”


	3. #3 - Restless

“You don’t have to stay here, you know,” Baelfire says. August has been back from Russia for two weeks, sleeping on Baelfire’s couch and hiding his cigarettes. Not because he minds that Baelfire smokes them, but because when he's missing them is the only time Baelfire lets his composure drop and proves himself to be human after all. “I’m sure I can find you a place of your own.”

August closes the book he's reading and places it in his lap. “Surely that wouldn’t be worth it. I’m here less often than I’m not. Save your money for acquiring the things you need.” 

“I have plenty of money. What I need is silence.”

“Was I flipping the pages too noisily?” August asks. “I shall try to be more considerate in the future.” He opens the book again and flips through the pages loudly a few times before he settles on his place. Leaning forward, he taps the book against the coffee table several times before he starts reading. 

“Your entire presence is too loud, even in your quietest hours. I’ve known that since I laid eyes on you in Germany.” 

“What would you know of my quiet hours? How much time did you spend watching me, eh? As much time as I spent watching you and trying to nail you to a story?” 

Baelfire bristles at the insinuation, but does not answer. He returns his attention to the letter he's drafting. August watches him for a short time before leaning back against the arm of the couch and resting his feet on the coffee table. He reads three more chapters before Baelfire lays down his pen and folds the paper in half. 

“I’m going to bed.” He pushes his chair back and places the letter carefully on his desk. “Try not to think too loudly.” 

“For you, Baelfire, my benefactor, I shall try not to think at all.” August smiles as foolishly as he can manage, trying to leave Baelfire with one last annoyance. 

Baelfire crosses to his bedroom door, not looking at August. He places his hand on the knob and pauses. “Bae,” he says. 

“I’m sorry.” 

“You can call me Bae. It’s what my father called me, and it’s time you learned that a thing’s name is its most important asset.”


	4. #4 - Snowflake

August wakes up to the sound of his typewriter keys hesitantly punching the cylinder. After he rules out the possibility that he’s having an out of body experience, he entertains the hope that they’re being robbed by a very polite thief. Perhaps when the hunting and pecking stops they’ll be left with an itemized list of missing things to turn over to the insurance company. The alternative is that Bae is _using his typewriter_ , which makes him just as uncomfortable as the idea of Bae coming in and poking at August himself in his sleep.

 _Clack. Clack. Ticktickticktickticktick. Clack._ Beat. _Clack. Clack. Tickticktickticktick._

He rolls out of bed, slides into a Dropkick Murphys t-shirt, and ambles out to the sitting area. “You break it, you buy it,” he says, and moves through to the kitchenette to start a pot of coffee.

“I already bought it,” Bae says. He continues his slow tarantella across the keys. The window behind him frames his face and hunched shoulders in the yellow grey light of the stormy morning. 

“Touche,” August mumbles, and hits the brew button on the coffee maker. He leans into the corner the counter makes where it meets the wall and crosses his arms. Eyes closed, he lets his chin drop to his chest and waits for the sound of the water percolating through the filter and splashing into the carafe.

_Clackclackclackclackclack. Clack. Clack. Ticktickticktickticktick._

_Clackclackclackclackclackclackclackclackclackclackclackclackclackclackclackclackclack._

_THWIP._

August hears the sound of Bae’s bare feet slapping against the hardwood floor. When he opens his eyes, Bae is tacking a piece of a paper to the plate cupboard, right at shoulder level. August leans forward so he can see. 

The page is covered in asterisks. They carefully create black clouds and snow drifts and lightly falling flakes. August leans back into this corner and raises an eyebrow that he hopes conveys the enormity of the slight betrayal Bae has committed, both in wasting ink and getting all of his _Bae-ness_ mixed into August’s sanctified work space.

“It’s the Day of First Snow,” Bae says in defense. 

August vaguely remembers the winter festival they’d held in the old world. He’d only been to one, and even then he’d still been wooden, so he doesn’t have the sense memories that Bae must. He hasn’t thought about it in years, having slipped readily into the customs of his new home when they presented themselves. 

“I keep to as many of the dates of old as I can. If this land had any magic I’d perform the Salting Ritual. I saw my father accomplish it enough to be able to make a go at it. But it doesn't.”

“It’s beautiful,” August says, feeling out of his depth. It’s the same feeling he gets when people ask him what he thinks of a museum piece while he's still standing in front of it. He hasn’t really had time to form an opinion—about the Day of First Snow, or the slowly growing cracks in Bae’s walls. “Thank you.” 

Bae pours the coffee into mismatched mugs and slides one in August’s direction. They both sip from their mugs silently and watch the paper, waiting to catch a glimpse of the magic they were missing.


	5. #5 - Haze

There’s a girl sitting alone at the end of the bar. Dark curls spill over her shoulders onto a red sateen jacket. Her lips, which quirk up at the corner when she realizes he’s watching her, are the same color red. August wants her, and he’s dissatisfied with the wanting because he knows that getting her will not make the want go away. That’s an itch he’s been trying to scratch for weeks. 

“Glenlivet, neat,” the bartender says, and places the tumbler down on a small, square napkin that August has been scribbling on. 

August rescues his notes and takes in a gulp of whiskey as he stuffs the napkin into the pocket of his jeans. Glenlivet tastes like Bae. Not that he’s tasted Bae, but Bae has a single glass of it each night before bed, so to August it must taste like reading on the couch framed by lamplight and writing letters at a scratched up oak desk and standing at the window and staring out into the dark streets below. It tastes like leaving. 

But he lacks Bae’s restraint, so August has had five glasses of Glenlivet since he sat down on the high stool and the space behind his eyes is starting to feel warm and heavy. When he looks up again the girl is sitting next to him. 

“It’s impolite to stare,” she says. 

“You have great beauty,” he says. “It’s unfair of you to want to keep it for yourself.” He laughs then, because it’s possibly the worst set of words he’s ever strung together and said out loud, and incredibly rude on top of it all. 

She rolls her eyes, but she’s still smiling. “Wouldn’t that be cheaper to buy by the bottle?” 

“And put a good bar like this one out of business? Good bars are hard to find. I feel obligated to give them my patronage.” 

“You talk about this place like it’s abstract, like it’s love.” 

“How do you know it’s not?” The real question was, how did he know?

“Forgive me,” she says, and leans in and kisses him on the mouth. 

She’s warm and her lips are soft, but there’s still something missing. She tastes wrong. She tastes of spearmint and vodka and the smoke hanging in the air and becoming. It’s wrong. He himself is becoming. He needs to taste a person who’s between becoming and leaving. He wants her, but not as she is. 

It’s an epiphany that makes him pull away abruptly. He could wait for her to be what he needs her to be. He could wait for anyone. If only he knew what he was waiting for.


	6. #6 - Flame

Angkor Thom is a ghost town. August had expected it to be unsettling, especially in the dead of night, but he hadn’t prepared himself for the absolute loneliness he was feeling. The presence of his photographer, fifteen feet away across the campfire, wasn’t doing anything to curb it.

“So, writer boy,” she says. ”How are you digging your first big assignment?”

“It’s alright.” He pulls his knees to his chest and wraps his arms around them, trying to conserve the warmth he’s catching off the flames. ”Somehow different than I expected, but good. Nice.” 

“Your first time is never what you expect,” she says, and smiles at him coyly. The dark skin of her face is golden in the orange light, and he’s reminded of the glow that used to emanate from the fairies. ”You’re younger than any of the other writers I’ve worked with.” 

“What can I say? I’m just chock full of raw talent and wanderlust?”

She studies him over the flames. ”Is that raw as well?” 

“It’s just the fleeting spirit of youth. I’ll grow into it.” 

“Perhaps,” she says. ”You’re something of an enigma, Mr. Booth. You seem too old and too young all at once. You’ve must have seen many things.” 

August looks up into the massive stone face of the closest Bodhisattva. The top half of it is cloaked in darkness, and he wishes he could pull that down over himself as well. He likes the feeling of being studied so far from his home even less than he likes the loneliness pulling at his gut. At least when Baelfire looked him over it was with a clear motive or question in mind. 

“I guess maybe I have,” he says. ”I had a weird childhood.” 

“Oh honey, didn’t we all? But I meant, they wouldn’t have trusted you with this gig if it was actually your first trip around the block.”

“Oh, right.” He bottles himself up as well as he can. Not telling people everything they wanted to know was a tough lesson in coming. Before it hadn’t mattered, because nothing he knew made a difference. Now, well, it might make all the difference in the world. This one and the next.

“What made you sign up for this assignment anyway?”

“Magic beans,” he says, and grins so they can laugh it off as a joke.

“Think you’ll find Jack and his beanstalk way out here?”

“No, Jack and I are already well-acquainted,” he says. ”But a beanstalk, well, that could be anywhere.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Personal fanon that will repeatedly com up in relation to August:   
> 1) He wrote for National Geographic, because it involves writing and lets him run as far as he likes.   
> 2) He helps Bae find things and gather information.


	7. #7 - Formal

“I feel like I’m playing grown up,” August says. 

“You’re 27,” Baelfire says, looking up from his book as August enters the living area. “And you’ve only really been cognizant for 20 or so years. You are playing grown up.” 

“That’s not fair.” August has had this argument with Baelfire before. Simply because he was ‘born’ at seven does not mean that he started at go. Still, he often fears he’s done something wrong that will give away his insecurity that what Baelfire says is true. He’s half hopeful that in this particular moment, Baelfire will make him take the suit off and give it back that instant. It must look more appropriate hanging untouched in Baelfire’s closet than it does hanging on him. It makes him uncomfortable. 

“I suppose not,” Baelfire says, looking him over. “It’s a bit wider at the shoulders than you need, but the pants are fine, right? A man has never missed an opportunity from looking a little more filled in in the shoulders.” Baelfire runs his fingers down August’s arms and holds his hands out, examining the shirtsleeve buttons at his wrists. “I think I have some cufflinks around here somewhere. Give me a moment.”

“I’m a writer,” August calls, as Baelfire disappears into his room. “No one is going to expect me dress for the occasion.”

“Even writers can benefit from good first impressions.” Baelfire presses a pair of cufflinks into August’s hand. “Put these in. Where is the tie?”

“I left it on the bed,” August says, and fumbles with the gold studs as Baelfire disappears into his room. 

When Baelfire comes back out he has the tie around his own neck and is quickly knotting it loosely. He pulls it over his head and drops it around August’s, tucking it under the collar of his shirt and tightening the knot. Their faces, August realizes, are very close together. Baelfire is carefully looking at an unspecific point around August’s chin.

Baelfire’s walls are always up. August doesn’t fault him for that. He knows very little about Baelfire’s life prior to the two years that they’ve been working together, but he knows enough about his own that he can form pretty stable conjecture. It’s just that suddenly, bubbling up from somewhere inside of him, he thinks that perhaps all of the walls and the bravado and the insistence that August is really younger than he feels, are related to something other than just Baelfire’s unpleasant past. August grew up in the system. He knows a fair amount about projection and deflection. 

“Bae,” he says.

Baelfire’s eyes snap up to his, surprise brightening them just a tick. Baelfire has been asking August to call him Bae for months, but it’s the first time August has gotten up the courage to do it, to allow himself to feel that familiar. Baelfire pulls his hand away from the tie and takes a step back. “Yes?”

“Thank you,” August says. 

It’s inadequate and too late, August knows. He’s worked hard for Baelfire, but he feels that he’s lucked out somehow and gotten too much in return. The thank you is also a myriad of other things that he’s not ready to say yet, thoughts that are just starting to form, hurried along by the feeling that he is standing there wearing Baelfire’s second skin. 

Baelfire reaches up and brushes a stray bit of hair out of August’s face. He doesn’t say anything.

August wonders, if you walk a mile in another man’s shoes, do you have to go back the same way you came to return them?


	8. #8 - Companion

The blues in Morocco are fathomless. August has seen the sky over seventeen countries and two hundred cities and it has never looked as pale or as washed out as it does hovering above the vibrant electric neon depths of the blue on the walls and the doorways and the domes and the spires. The North Atlantic reflects the sky and the sky reflects the North Atlantic and try as they might, neither one can coax the brilliance out of the other. 

“What color do you suppose the sky is?” he asks. 

Clutching at the tail of his linen jacket, Baelfire looks up. ”It depends on what part of the sky you’re asking about. Here it is blue. Seven time zones east I imagine it’s sinking from orange to purple.”

“Just blue?” August shifts his weight from one foot to the other and nudges Baelfire’s elbow in his sway. 

Baelfire leans into August’s space ever so slightly. He’s been inching toward August for a month now, slowly climbing into the physical places August occupies like he’s climbing into a tub of ice water. After every few centimeters he has to stop and let his skin adjust to the new environment. ”Should it be something other than blue?”

“Not brandeis or steel?”

Baelfire shrugs. 

August has never travelled with Baelfire before. Not any great distance, anyway. Seeing Baelfire’s ticks in a foreign setting are helping August to decode them in a way he never could have back in their Boston apartment. The shrug means that Baelfire has tired of the topic. It means, I don’t think about things that way, and, move on.

 

Changing tack, August says, “do you think we’ll know the lamp when we see it?”

“Almost certainly not, but that’s half the fun.”

“Your definition of fun is not to be trusted.” 

Baelfire smiles. The expression melts across his face like oil in water and August can’t help but let a speck of pride well up inside of him. The number of genuine smiles he’s seen on Baelfire’s face in the last two years can be counted on one hand. When they come August considers them truly won. He chases these victories as doggedly as Baelfire chases down artifacts and information. Lust comes in so many forms. 

They’re both after a curse. 

“If I can not have your trust I will settle for your company,” Baelfire says. He pivots on his heel and begins to climb the steps to the mosque. August hangs back, contemplating the vain white edges of sky at the horizon. 

The reds in Morocco are fathomless. In the sense, August guesses, that they cannot be understood. He decides to give himself over to them anyway.


	9. #9 - Move

The morning after, Baelfire wakes August up with a mug of coffee on the bedside table and says, “I want you to move out.” 

August squints, stretches, and pushes himself up. He rubs a hand through the back of his hair and picks up the coffee with the other. ”Was it that bad?” He’s not seriously asking the question, but he’s never quite sure when Baelfire will seriously answer him. He braces himself, just a bit, and waits. 

Baelfire frowns. ”No. That’s not what this is about.” 

“I find that hard to believe. Last night it had been a year and a half since you suggested I get my own place.”

“You misunderstand me. I am asking you to move out because we had sex, but I am not getting rid of you.” 

August raises an eyebrow and blows into his coffee out of habit. He holds the mug with both hands, keeping it as a barrier between them. ”So what you’re saying is, you can’t take care of and _take care of me_?”

“It’s a conflict of interest.” 

“I don’t think our interests are actually all that conflicted, but okay.”

“Just until we figure out what this is,” Baelfire says. It’s uncharacteristic, the way Baelfire sounds like he’s not exactly sure what he needs to say. August has never heard that slight tremor in his voice, not even when he was talking about his past relationships or his father or growing up alone. None of it. 

August puts down the mug with slow and deliberate action, then he gets out of bed and pulls on his boxers. ”You don’t have to be afraid of me,” he says. ”I don’t love you. And I don’t need you to love me.” 

“That would be the least of my fears,” Baelfire says. ”Love doesn’t worry me. Love is the strongest magic that exists in this dull and lifeless world and I try to hold onto whatever trace amounts of it that I can find. But. Need is the right word. I do envy how you always know what to say.” 

“It’s a life skill.” August picks the mug up again and takes it with him, back to his own bedroom on the other side of the apartment. The wood floors are cool under his feet and he looks around the living room as he passes through, trying to remember what it looked like before he became a part of it. 

“I’m going to loosen my hold on you,” Baelfire says, following behind him and stopping just short of entering. ”You should go and take those writing assignments that the magazine offers you. You should travel again. More than you have been, more like you used to before we came upon one another. And you should be in constant contact with me, because we need to keep our ears to the ground. And we need to keep each other.”

“We’re all we have,” August says. 

“And Emma,” Baelfire replies. 

August studies him. ”Do you know where she is?”

“No.” 

It’s not a very convincing _no_ , but August lets him have it. If Baelfire doesn’t know where she is, then it doesn’t matter. If he does, then he’s watching her, making sure she grows the way the people of Storybrooke will need her to. Either way, he’s still absolved of his guilt. For now.

“If I need to come back,” August says. ”If I want you to take me in.” 

“You above all others,” Baelfire says. 

August nods and closes the door between them.


End file.
